Reddit reviews Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager, Revised and Updated

You sound like an amazing step dad! I think you should keep on keeping on.

Keep in mind that teenagerdom brings about interest in sex. So it is likely a weird thing for her to even consider loving you at this point. She's now trying to break away from her child self and grow into her adult self. Love and loving physical contact with parents starts to get weird, add in that you aren't her bio and... I'm sure you can imagine how mixed up that can make a person feel.

If you feel like you are both having a good time and she wants to hang out, keep doing it, having a bond with you will be good for her in the tumultuous teen years to come. If you feel like she maybe isn't as into it, keep offering with sincerity and don't let a no hurt your feelings. It has everything to do with being a teenager.

I would highly recommend reading Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager, Revised and Updated, as well as Queen Bees and Wannabes, 3rd Edition: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New Realities of Girl World, and for the boys Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World.

Someone on here suggested "Get out of my life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall?" and I read it this past week. I definitely found it useful. There were chapters that were almost word for word things he said he "wished he knew what to do" about. There were a couple parts that I read out loud to DH and he kind of dismissed me. I told him that he should read it and he was not interested at all. It's frustrating because yes, my son is a lot younger and DH is a more experienced parent, but at the same time- I have experience working with teenagers (education). Not to mention, I used to be a teenage girl who had some of the same behaviors that are frustrating him. Sometimes I think he just wants to complain about a problem more than solve it.

Get out of my Life, but First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall is a good one for dealing with teenagers, though it's not specifically intended for steps. Although it definitely focuses on the child in the sense that it aims to help you understand why they act the way they do, it is all in the context of understanding that the adults in the household have needs and feelings too. It really helped me understand my SD better.

Stepmonster was great. I read half the damn book to FH. May I recommend some books for parents of preteens in general--may help you understand why she is the way she is.

Get out of my life!

Untangled

My personality type dictates that I have a really hard time sympathizing with people. I did a shit ass job of trying to understand my SD12's feelings for like three years. I also resented her and had too much anger directed at her instead of where it was supposed to go (myself for how I reacted to her). Finally all clicked for me a year ago and I read a lot of books to get me to that point (I was also against having children....until I met her!) Good luck and hang in there.

For the teen years, my favorite is "Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall"

https://www.amazon.com/Life-First-Could-Drive-Cheryl/dp/0374528535/

> I insist on getting the school side of his life right, I am not compromising there.

By the time a child is a teen, they should already know how to take responsibility for their academics. If you still need to hound him about schoolwork, that's not good. It's not your role to do that. Enlist the school, see if they have academic support classes that can teach him how to be more organized. Insist he (NOT you) talk to his guidance counselor; perhaps he's in classes that are beyond his aptitude level. If it's a lack of being challenged, his counselor can help get him into more demanding courses. Or, encourage him to look into courses of study outside of what is offered in the school. Find something that makes him excited and motivated. Learning isn't all done in a classroom.

Important here is that he takes the initiative. You can coach and nudge, but resist the urge to do it all for him. If he's only a few short years from going to college, he's going to need to know how to do this on his own, because you won't be there. I know (based on what you wrote elsewhere) you want to be there, but you shouldn't be holding his hand in college. You shouldn't be holding his hand now!!

You need to let go, let him fall down and make his mistakes and learn from them. It's not the end of the world if he gets lousy grades in high school. It's normal to think that, but it's simply not true. He's got an entire lifetime to get his act together.

I will share that two of the most successful people I know nearly flunked out of high school. Okay, one was a solid D student. The other actually did flunk out. The D student (my sister) went to community college, got her act together, graduated a solid C student... then went on to a career in sales where she makes $300K. She excels in sales - she does not excel in classroom learning. The other person flunked out, spent a few years floundering around, decided to change her life, went back for her GED, worked part-time jobs while sending herself through college over a period of years, and now is also in sales, making $300K.

Then there's story after story of computer whizzes who don't go to college but found start-up companies.....

> What's more I need to push him to go out more and meet more of his peers and I do it, because he'd turn into a hermit (computer addicted hermit) if I let him.

What you are doing here is telling him there's something "wrong" with his personality that needs to be "fixed." Your job as his mother is to accept him as he is. It's possible he's an introvert. It's possible all these "peers" are into drugs, and he wants no part of it. You just don't know.

It's also possible that home is where he recharges his batteries, and he's completely different outside of the house. My youngest (16) is like this. When she's home, you can't get her off the computer, t.v., or her nose out of a book. She withdraws completely, and acts grumpy and hermit-like. But when she's out of the house, she is ON - an extreme extrovert, chatterbug, go-go-go!! She tells me that when she comes home, she just wants to unplug and relax...

I highly recommend this book to you:

http://www.amazon.com/Life-First-Could-Drive-Cheryl/dp/0374528535

as well as this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Primal-Teen-Discoveries-about-Teenage/dp/0385721609

One more anecdote I'll share, about my oldest, nearly 18 now. She has her first job this summer, as a camp counselor with small children (age 5 and 6). I was very concerned about this, because at home, she is irresponsible, easily distracted, daydreams a lot, and doesn't seem to like children at all. She has a half-sister and she doesn't get down on the floor and play with her. If the house was burning down around her ears, she'd never notice... etc, etc...

Guess what? The camp is reporting that she is the BEST counselor they've ever had!! That the children all adore her. That she's attentive, responsible, etc, etc.... they even gave her extended hours! Complete surprise to us....

But, not really. This is the way it is with teens. You get the bad side at home - because it's safe for them to be bad, to regress. Meanwhile, they are completely different outside of the house. They are busy making you proud. You cannot judge how your son acts at home, as how he acts outside of the home.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0936197447/ref=pd_cp_0_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7G1BEWHP8Y416QJKXJ4T



https://www.amazon.com/Life-First-Could-Drive-Cheryl/dp/0374528535